It’s been a while since I’ve published one of these posts so we’re well overdue.

Articles

SPARK: VIRL is launched! by Anthony Burke – I’m curious to see what VIRL does to the GNS3 community, especially with GNS3 having just recently released their new version, GNS3 1.2. The hardware requirements for VIRL are pretty stiff compared with GNS3, and I also noticed there’s no support for VirtualBox. I personally haven’t had time to play around with GNS3 but hope to-do so sometime soon. I’m curious to read what others are thinking.

Using Scapple To Help Manage Complex Network Changes by Ethan Banks – I enjoy using Scapple to build flow charts for data or interfaces. You’d be surprised how many firewalls, load-balancers and reverse proxy servers some data feeds need to traverse. Scapple is a great tool, quick and dirty, that allows me to quickly document the existing environment and review new designs. I’ve also used Skitch which was acquired by Evernote sometime ago.

The Android 5.0 Lollipop Review by Brandon Chester – I’m still running Android 4.4.2 (Kitkat) but I’m looking forward to testing Lollipop when either Verizon releases it for Moto X or Samsung releases it for their Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition tablet.

Data caps, limited competition a recipe for trouble in home Internet service by Jon Brodkin – The war around Net Neutrality is heating up again. I’m a Verizon FiOS TV/Internet customer and they don’t have data caps yet, but I can’t see it staying that way for long if Comcast is allowed to continue down the path their on. I really wish we had more competition for broadband here in the United States.

Closing Comments on Old Posts by Scott Lowe – I threw in the towel earlier this year and now close comments on posts older than a year. Since that change the comment SPAM on my blog has dropped off significantly. I now get 40-60 a week where as I was getting 200-350 a week.

Can You AS-Prepend a Single Host Route? by Ivan Pepelnjak – I’ve used AS prepending on /32 (host) routes internally within my network to provide redundant paths to critical VIPs and such. As mentioned by Ivan I don’t think there are any ISPs out there that will accept anything less than a /24 route into their BGP routing tables.